My Family Stopped Eating Sugar for a Year and This is What Happened

[humble3d]

My Family Stopped Eating Sugar for a Year and This is What Happened

By Eve O. Schaub, Special to Everyday Health

Once upon a time, I was healthy - at least I thought I was.

Sure, I lacked enough energy to get me through the day, but with all the commercials on TV touting energy drinks for America's tired masses, I always assumed I wasn't the only one suffering. And sure, everyone in my family dreaded the coming cold and flu season, but again, I thought come January everyone develops some degree of germophobia.

At least, that's what I thought until I heard some disturbing new information about the effects of sugar. According to several experts, sugar is the thing that is making so many Americans fat and sick. The more I thought about it the more this made sense to me - a lot of sense. One in seven Americans has metabolic syndrome. One in three Americans is obese. The rate of diabetes is skyrocketing and cardiovascular disease is America's number one killer.

_http://www.everydayhealth.com/columns/robert-rosenberg-sleep-answers/poor-sleep-linked-increased-risk-metabolic-syndrome/?xid=y_sh

According to this theory, all of these maladies and more can be traced back to one large toxic presence in our diet… sugar.

A Bright Idea

I took all of this newfound knowledge and formulated an idea. I wanted to see how hard it would be to have our family - me, my husband, and our two children (ages 6 and 11) - spend an entire year eating foods that contained no added sugar. We'd cut out anything with an added sweetener, be it table sugar, honey, molasses, maple syrup, agave or fruit juice. We also excluded anything made with fake sugar or sugar alcohols. Unless the sweetness was attached to its original source (e.g., a piece of fruit), we didn't eat it.

Once we started looking we found sugar in the most amazing places: tortillas, sausages, chicken broth, salad dressing, cold cuts, crackers, mayonnaise, bacon, bread, and even baby food. Why add all of this sugar? To make these items more palatable, add shelf life, and make packaged food production ever cheaper.

Call me crazy, but avoiding added sugar for a year struck me as a grand adventure. I was curious as to what would happen. I wanted to know how hard it would be, what interesting things could happen, how my cooking and shopping would change. After continuing my research, I was convinced removing sugar would make us all healthier. What I didn't expect was how not eating sugar would make me feel better in a very real and tangible way.

A Sugar-Free Year Later

It was subtle, but noticeable: the longer I went on eating without added sugar, the better and more energetic I felt. If I doubted the connection, something happened next which would prove it to me: my husband's birthday.

During our year of no sugar, one of the rules was that, as a family, we could have one actual sugar-containing dessert per month. If it was your birthday, you got to choose the dessert. By the time September rolled around we noticed our palates starting to change, and slowly, we began enjoying our monthly "treat" less and less.

But when we ate the decadent multi-layered banana cream pie my husband had requested for his birthday celebration, I knew something new was happening. Not only did I not enjoy my slice of pie, I couldn't even finish it. It tasted sickly sweet to my now sensitive palate. It actually made my teeth hurt. My head began to pound and my heart began to race. I felt awful.

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It took a good hour lying on the couch holding my head before I began to recover. "Geez," I thought, "has sugar always made me feel bad, but because it was everywhere, I just never noticed it before?"

After our year of no sugar ended, I went back and counted the absences my kids had in school and compared them to those of previous years. The difference was dramatic. My older daughter, Greta, went from missing 15 days the year before to missing only two.

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Now that our year of no sugar is over, we'll occasionally indulge, but the way we eat it is very different. We appreciate sugar in drastically smaller amounts, avoid it in everyday foods (that it shouldn't be in in the first place), and save dessert for truly special occasions. My body seems to be thanking me for it. I don't worry about running out of energy. And when flu season comes around I somehow no longer feel the urge to go and hide with my children under the bed. But if we do come down with something, our bodies are better equipped to fight it. We get sick less and get well faster. Much to my surprise, after our no-sugar life, we all feel healthier and stronger. And that is nothing to sneeze at.

_https://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/family-stopped-eating-sugar-happened-202700552.html

Poor Sleep Linked to an Increased Risk of Metabolic Syndrome

By Robert Rosenberg, DO

Published Mar 31, 2014

Metabolic syndrome is a group of risk factors that significantly raise the risk of developing diabetes mellitus, stroke, and heart disease. An increase in waistline (indicative of abdominal obesity), high serum triglycerides, low HDL cholesterol levels (sometimes referred to as “good “ cholesterol), high blood pressure, and elevated fasting blood sugar — when occurring together, can cause metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome is estimated to affect 34 percent of all Americans age 20 and over. That number increases to 50 percent after the age of 59.

A study published online in the March 25 edition of The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology found a remarkable relationship between sleep duration and metabolic syndrome. The authors reviewed studies relating sleep to metabolic health from 1998 to 2013. Of the studied population 22 percent suffered from metabolic syndrome. However, it doubled to 48 percent among short sleepers getting six to seven hours of sleep and increased to an astounding 83 percent of those getting less than six hours.

This is not the first study to link this epidemic health problem to sleep. In a study published in 2011 in The New England Journal of Medicine, discovered that 70 percent of those with sleep apnea have metabolic syndrome. In this study, treatment of sleep apnea with CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) resulted in a 20 percent reduction of the syndrome.

Another report, the Millennium Cohort Study, published last year, studied 47,000 military personnel and found that troubled sleep, short sleep, and sleep apnea predicted the onset of type 2 diabetes.

The relationship between poor and fragmented sleep and metabolic syndrome seems to be established. Certainly, genetic and environmental factors are very important. However, the role of sleep is now becoming more prominent. We think that insufficient and fragmented sleep results in stress that in turn leads to the production of hormones such as cortisol, adrenaline, and ghrelin. As a result, these hormones can cause an elevation of blood sugar, hypertension, and obesity.

The take home message from these studies is the importance of sleep to metabolic and cardiovascular health. The authors of the study point out that we as physicians need to take a more structured approach to the sleep of their patients. They encourage the routine use of sleep questionnaires that may expose underlying problems with sleep quality and duration as part of routine medical practice. I think that this is an excellent idea. However, until that day comes, I encourage all of you who have or are at risk for metabolic syndrome to be very mindful of your sleep.

_http://www.everydayhealth.com/columns/robert-rosenberg-sleep-answers/poor-sleep-linked-increased-risk-metabolic-syndrome/?xid=y_sh

_http://www.thelancet.com/journals/landia/article/PIIS2213-8587(14)70012-9/abstract

[Alanon]

No news there. The old Greeks didn't know of the white powder we call sugar today. Honey was often used as a natural all-round sweetener, while fruits were the snacks and exotics like dates the treats of choice.

[MOT]

No news there. The old Greeks didn't know of the white powder we call sugar today. Honey was often used as a natural all-round sweetener, while fruits were the snacks and exotics like dates the treats of choice.

My ancestors visited this planet when Aristotle, a famous Greek in your Earths history logs, was alive. It was in the year 384 before the age of your Christ child, I believe you Earthlings would say the year was 384 B.C. or B.C.E. His father, Nicomachus, had just died. Sir U. Tan was not pleased with the way Proxenus was raising him. Sir U. Tan thought of the ancient(as you Earthlings say) Greeks as demi-gods and wanted to help them in any way he could. One of the things he taught them was the value of nutrition, what was safe to eat and how to prepare such foods. Alanon of Earth, you are wise and true. May I inquire as to your left eye? Why the patch? Were you injured in a great quest for knowledge or truth? Will it grow back? I wish you well and long life!

Edited April 11, 2014 by MOT

[nuthut]

No news there. The old Greeks didn't know of the white powder we call sugar today. Honey was often used as a natural all-round sweetener, while fruits were the snacks and exotics like dates the treats of choice.

My ancestors visited this planet when Aristotle, a famous Greek in your Earths history logs, was alive. It was in the year 384 before the age of your Christ child, I believe you Earthlings would say the year was 384 B.C. or B.C.E. His father, Nicomachus, had just died. Sir U. Tan was not pleased with the way Proxenus was raising him. Sir U. Tan thought of the ancient(as you Earthlings say) Greeks as demi-gods and wanted to help them in any way he could. One of the things he taught them was the value of nutrition, what was safe to eat and how to prepare such foods. Alanon of Earth, you are wise and true. May I inquire as to your left eye? Why the patch? Were you injured in a great quest for knowledge or truth? Will it grow back? I wish you well and long life!

WTF did I just read?

[Shadowx]

No news there. The old Greeks didn't know of the white powder we call sugar today. Honey was often used as a natural all-round sweetener, while fruits were the snacks and exotics like dates the treats of choice.

My ancestors visited this planet when Aristotle, a famous Greek in your Earths history logs, was alive. It was in the year 384 before the age of your Christ child, I believe you Earthlings would say the year was 384 B.C. or B.C.E. His father, Nicomachus, had just died. Sir U. Tan was not pleased with the way Proxenus was raising him. Sir U. Tan thought of the ancient(as you Earthlings say) Greeks as demi-gods and wanted to help them in any way he could. One of the things he taught them was the value of nutrition, what was safe to eat and how to prepare such foods. Alanon of Earth, you are wise and true. May I inquire as to your left eye? Why the patch? Were you injured in a great quest for knowledge or truth? Will it grow back? I wish you well and long life!

WTF did I just read?

:rofl: